105325: Ruling on working as a web designer

I work as a web designer. The websites I design do not contain pictures of women or pictures that are not Islamically acceptable. I do not use songs or music in my designs. All I do is designing the site page. Is my work permissible? The money I earn is halal or haram? If after I finish designing, the owner of the site adds songs or pictures or any haram thing, will I bear its sin? Is it permissible to use pictures of children in my designs?.

Praise be to Allaah.

This is an issue that is of widespread concern nowadays, as
the result of the spread of sin and all kinds of haraam things. There is
hardly any field in which the shaytaan does not try to spread evil in it, so
such an extent that the Muslims are become very confused about what is
halaal and what is haraam, and it has become very difficult for them to
purify their earnings and avoid any haraam elements in them. Allaah is
watching the pious and He is sufficient for His believing slaves. He sees
that they want to obey Him and hate to disobey Him, and He will reward them
and grant them forgiveness.

In Islamic sharee’ah, one of the principles of permissible
business and trade is that it should not be something by means of which
Allaah is disobeyed, so it should not be a means of sinning or lead to
falling into haraam. When Islam forbids a thing, it also forbids everything
that may lead to it or help with it, and Islam enjoins blocking all the
means that lead to it.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Help you one another in Al‑Birr and At‑Taqwa (virtue,
righteousness and piety); but do not help one another in sin and
transgression. And fear Allaah. Verily, Allaah is Severe in punishment”

[al-Maa’idah 5:2]

Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahmaan al-Sa’di (may Allaah have mercy on
him) said:

One is required to refrain from every sin and act of
wrongdoing, and to help others to refrain also. End quote.

Tafseer al-Sa’di (p. 218)

It says in al-Mawsoo’ah al-Fiqhiyyah (3/140):

According to the majority of fuqaha’ it is not acceptable to
sell grapes to one who will use them to make wine, or to sell means of
gambling to a gambler, or a house that will be used as a church, or to sell
wood to one who will make it into a cross, or to sell copper to one who will
make it into a bell. The same applies to everything which it is known that
the purchaser intends to use it for something that is not permissible. End
quote.

If the seller, designer or producer is certain that what he
designs will be used for haraam purposes, it is not permissible for him to
sell it or produce it. The same ruling applies if he thinks that is most
likely, even if he is not certain.

But if he is in doubt, or he does not know how the item he is
selling or producing will be used, then there is no harm in selling it and
designing it, and the sin will fall on the one who uses it for haraam
purposes.

Ibn Hazm (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:

It is not permissible to sell anything to one who will
certainly use it to disobey Allaah, and such transactions are permanently
null and void, such as selling anything that may be squeezed or pressed to
one who it is certain will use it to make khamr (alcohol), or selling a
slave to one who it is certain will mistreat his slave, or selling weapons
or horses to those who it is certain will use them to attack the Muslims, or
selling silk to one who it is certain will wear it, and so on, because
Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Help you one another in Al‑Birr and At‑Taqwa (virtue,
righteousness and piety); but do not help one another in sin and
transgression. And fear Allaah. Verily, Allaah is Severe in punishment”

[al-Maa’idah 5:2]

The kinds of transactions that we have mentioned are
obviously kinds of cooperating in sin and transgression, without going into
detail, so annulling them is cooperating in righteousness and piety.

If no such thing is known for certain, then the transaction
is valid, because it is not helping in sin. If the purchaser disobeys Allaah
after that, then the sin is on the purchaser only and not on the seller. End
quote.

Al-Muhalla (7/522).

The same ruling applies to the brother who asked the
question:

If someone comes to you and you know that he wants to design
a website that he will use for haraam purposes, such as riba-based banking
or indecent pictures or selling haraam things such as alcohol, pork or
cigarettes, or websites for movies and music, then it is not permissible for
you to design the website for him, and it is not permissible for you to help
him in the evil that he wants to do; rather what you must do is advise him
and guide him and remind him to fear Allaah, may He be glorified and
exalted.

But if you do not know anything about the reason he is asking
for website design, or if the site will most likely be used for permissible
and beneficial things, then there is nothing wrong with you designing it and
selling it, even if the owner will include some haraam things in it, because
the rulings of sharee’ah are based on what is most likely to be the case and
not on rare instances.

With regard to the ruling on including pictures of children
on the websites that you design, that is not permissible. We have stated
previously that it is haraam to make images, whether they are drawn by hand
or made with a machine (a camera), and no exceptions are made from this
ruling except that which is absolutely necessary, such as pictures in
passports and other things that are needed. See the answer to question no.
20325.